How an actress representing herself (pro se) defeated Trump's fancy campaign lawyers

[pnwmom]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-says-trump-campaign-screwed-wording-confidentiality-agreements-025613573.html

A Manhattan judge issued a ruling on Thursday that thwarted the Trump campaign’s attempts to keep a lawsuit out of open court, with potential implications for the looming battle over fired Trump aide Omarosa Manigault Newman’s slow-motion revelations of her experiences in the Trump campaign and White House.

The decision came in a lawsuit filed by Jessica Denson, a former campaign staffer who filed a complaint last November that alleged she was subjected to “harassment and sexual discrimination” while she worked on Trump’s White House bid in 2016. Lawyers for the Trump campaign tried to force the case into private arbitration based on an agreement signed by staffers that included nondisclosure and nondisparagement provisions. In her decision, Judge Arlene Bluth of New York State Supreme Court disclosed flaws in the wording of the agreement that she said limited its scope.

SNIP

Bluth’s ruling became public today when Denson tweeted a copy of the order. It is notable because Denson is representing herself and still defeated the Trump campaign’s lawyers. The judge’s decision represents a rare victory for a pro se litigant, the legal term for a person proceeding in court on their own behalf against a party represented by licensed attorneys. Denson, a young actress, declined to comment on this story.

In an ironic twist, President Trump was personally a party to the New York case that establishes the legal principle controlling Bluth’s decision. That 1993 case, Trump v. Refco Properties, Inc., concerned a dispute among the partners who own the Grand Hyatt near Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan; it established that a party may not be forced into arbitration unless their agreement to arbitrate “expressly and unequivocally encompasses the subject matter of the particular dispute.” President Trump sought to avoid private arbitration in that case, and won the issue on appeal. Bluth specifically cited that decision in her ruling against Trump’s campaign.

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[Gothmog]

1. This makes me smile

[pnwmom]

5. Me, too. I couldn't believe how deeply they buried the pro se aspect.

And that she had discovered the old Trump case that helped her win.

She also is representing herself in Federal court, but it appears her chances might be lower there.

[marble falls]

2. That last paragraph is especially rich!

[suffragette]

3. Love the irony that a Trump case established the principle for this. Bet he is fuming about it.

[lagomorph777]

4. Awesome! Score one for the "little" gal!

("little" meaning "non-billionaire", not "diminuitive female" or anything of the kind).